Congress Grants NOAA Flexibility To Maintain Weather Satellite Programs

Space News (11/5, Subscription Publication, 481) editorializes that granting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration funding flexibility to maintain its weather satellite programs is “one of the few things Congress has done right in recent weeks.” The October 16 measure that reopened the government granted NOAA the discretion to fund its Geostationary-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite-R and Joint Polar Satellite System programs “at whatever rate is needed to keep them on track” until a replacement spending bill is passed. The Defense Department is reportedly interested in Congress passing “actual spending bills” for NOAA and NASA, as well as itself.